when life gives you lemons...go bowling?

Tonight was an interesting one for sure.

After work I took the Route 31 out to Tosa and met the YNPN Book Club at Firefly for a discussion of Myla Goldberg's Bee Season. Our theme for the first quarter is Education, and this was our fiction book. It's pretty cool how it's set up. We pick a quarterly theme and then read three genres -- non-fiction, fiction and memoir/biography.

Discussion was good and food was excellent. Had a chicken sandwich topped with avocado, white cheddar and gorgonzola. MMM. Picked chive mashed potatoes and crispy bok salad as my sides. Delish! A glass of wine would have been more tasty than my Coca-Cola, but I'm still refraining.

Cut out a bit early as Brooke and I had plans to go see Post-Secret at Marquette. Craig decided to come along too, which was a nice surprise.

Now, when I went to Marquette I never took advantage of the plethora of speakers, etc. that they brought to campus. I think I went to a few things, but they were never crowded. Granted, the Internet was fledgling then. There were no blogs and no Internet celebrities. There was no Facebook or MySpace to meet other nerds who may be interested in attending an event with you.

No, I didn't go to campus events. I drank. But actually, my only true friends left from college ARE my fellow nerds. Hmm.

Well, apparently campus involvement is IN and we were extremely disappointed that when we reached the Weasler Auditorium there was a sign that the event was At Capacity.

Crap.

We were stuck on a college campus with me not drinking and my newlywed friends on a tight budget.

What to do?

The neon lights from across Wells beckoned.

"Let's go bowling!" I suggested.

Well, why not?

Luckily we were there an hour before League Night began. The student workers told us we could only have one game. Fine. Whatever.

They assigned us to Lane 7, which apparently didn't work. After waiting 10 minutes for them to reset the system, it still didn't work, so they agonized a bit and moved us to Lane 9. Keep in mind the Annex, with the exception of workers, was completely empty at this time. But apparently those leagues were about to fill the place!

My goal for bowling was to beat Barack Obama, which I barely did, with a 53. I did have a rally in the last frame and got a spare. That sure made up for all my gutterballs. Brooke handily won the game with like a 84,000 or something. I forgot she was in a bowling league in Law School, so we should've allowed for a handicap. Of course she had to go off-campus for the league there though, as apparently Notre Dame has no bowling alley on campus. Which, as Craig pointed out, makes it a second-rate Catholic school.

Go Gold!